BORLAND, Solon, a Senator from Arkansas; born near Suffolk, Nansemond County, Va., September
21, 1808; attended preparatory schools in North Carolina; studied and afterwards practiced medicine;
settled in Little Rock, Ark.; served throughout the Mexican War as a major in the Arkansas Volunteer
Cavalry; was appointed and subsequently elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the
vacancy caused by the resignation of Ambrose H. Sevier and served from March 30, 1848, to April
11, 1853, when his resignation became effective; chairman, Committee on Printing (Thirty-first and
Thirty-second Congresses), Committee on Public Lands (Thirty-third Congress); served as United
States Minister to Nicaragua and to the other Central American Republics 1853-1854; declined an
appointment as Governor of the Territory of New Mexico; returned to Arkansas and resumed the
practice of medicine in Little Rock until 1861; during the Civil War raised a brigade of troops for the
Confederate Army; later was appointed a brigadier general in the Confederate Army; died near
Houston, Tex., on January 1, 1864; interment in City Cemetery, Houston, Tex.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Woods, James M. Expansionism as Diplomacy: The
Career of Solon Borland in Central America 1853-1854. Americas 40 (January
1984): 399-415.